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| ▲ | ndriscoll 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, a program is literally, exactly, a blueprint. It is the abstract description. This can even be formally stated mathematically (i.e. programs are formal mathematical objects). Note that you can touch an office building. You can stand inside of one. You cannot touch a program. You cannot stand inside of one. There is no concrete "thing" that is the program. You can only run a program using a (universal) computing machine, which can perform any math. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ok, call it whatever you want, all of these semantics and metaphors are legally irrelevant anyway. I still fail to see what this tangent has to do with this conversation. | | |
| ▲ | ndriscoll 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Because a patent is a description of an invention. A computer program (like a driver) is also a description of some algorithm. This is not a metaphor. It is definitionally exactly true. Saying it's protected by a patent is like saying an engineering book is protected by a patent (in fact, you can print a program in... a book, and there are many programs contained in books). It's not only false, but would go against the entire purpose of a patent, which is to publish a description of the invention. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | A computer program being "a description" or being published does not preclude it from violating a patent. Perhaps you disagree with this, but this is the current state. | | |
| ▲ | ndriscoll an hour ago | parent [-] | | It does because patents don't cover descriptions of inventions. They cover inventions. Words in a book aren't the right "type" to be able to infringe on a patent, but they can be a computer program. You yourself linked to a case limiting even the ability to claim that running a computer program on a computer can be patented. The program itself was never patentable. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system an hour ago | parent [-] | | Right, software itself not patentable, only inventions. That is completely unrelated to the question as to whether software can violate a patent. If you write software that implements an invention that is patented, you have violated the patent. | | |
| ▲ | ndriscoll 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The point is that software does not implement an invention. You're making a type error. No software does. It's like saying "a green tastes good." Green doesn't taste anything, and you can't have "a green." It's a color. When you write those words it's just a nonsense string. Software doesn't implement any patent just like 5 or pi don't implement any patent. It's a formal mathematical object. It also can't violate a patent because you can't patent mathematical objects, only inventions. An implementation of a patent may contain a computer that runs software. It's like saying a circuit diagram could infringe on a patent. No, only a circuit can. Software is the diagram. A thing running software can infringe, but software isn't the right type of thing to be able to infringe. You can print books full of detailed diagrams and instructions all day long. The patent is already supposed to describe the thing! It's not secret! A description of every last detail is not protected! This is also why you can prove things about software. You cannot prove things about inventions; only models of the inventions. You can actually prove statements about software itself because it is already part of formal mathematics. |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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